Yummy noodles that also ease small-scale farmers’ woes: the goal of one food science start-up in Singapore. That firm, NamZ, is now getting a boost – to take its high-protein, lower-fat NoodleZ from pilot to product.
NamZ was among nine regional businesses that clinched social enterprise grants from lender DBS Bank’s DBS Foundation.
These do-gooder firms received a combined S$1.3 million, under 2019’s DBS Foundation Social Enterprise Grant Programme, which gives each recipient up to S$250,000 to scale up its operations. The funds can go towards market expansion, a production ramp-up, or other ways to grow the company’s impact on society. The DBS Foundation scheme is open to social enterprises from Singapore, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.
Three winners hailed from Singapore: NamZ; reach52, which uses apps to collect health data from rural communities and connect them with care providers; and Agape Connecting People, which finds work for people with disabilities, single mothers, prisoners and other disadvantaged job seekers.
“We believe the grant is a great step in helping us get the product and word out to more consumers, accelerating the benefits to farmers and consumers alike,” NamZ co-founder Christoph Langwallner told The Business Times.
NamZ is working to wean agri-business off commodity crops such as oil palm by supporting smallholder cultivation of “future-fit crops”, such as Bambara groundnut and moringa.
As it aims to drive up demand for these crops through its products, the DBS Foundation grant will be used to raise noodle production capacity.
The nine grant winners, picked from a pool of 600 applicants, are eligible for banking services that DBS billed as “virtually free”. They can also access resources meant for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Read more here.
Source: The Business Times, 25 Nov 2019